Tricky Card Plays, Dice Challenges, and More of The Mind Arrive from NSV in 2019

Ohanami consists of a deck of 120 cards that are numbered from 1-120, with each card having one of four symbols on it. The game lasts three rounds, with players scoring at the end of each round, in addition to bonus scoring at the end of the game.

At the start of a round, each player receives a hand of ten cards. Each player chooses two cards, then passes the remaining cards to the left. All players reveal their cards at the same time, then decide whether to use 0, 1, or 2 of them in personal rows of cards. When you start a row, you can use any card; to add a card to an existing row, that card must be higher than the row's highest card or lower than the lowest one. A player can have at most three rows of cards. Discard any cards you don't use.

Players repeat this drafting, passing, and playing process until they have played ten cards. The first round ends, and players now receive 3 points for each blue card in their rows.

Players then receive a new hand of ten cards to start round 2, once again choosing two cards and passing the rest, but now to the right. Players continue building on the rows that they already have, scoring 3 points for each blue card and 4 points for each green card at the end of round two.

For round three, players have ten more cards and pass cards to the left once again. At the end of this round, players once again score for their blue and green cards, while also receiving 7 points for each gray card in their rows. Additionally, each player scores for their pink cherry blossom cards, with these cards having a pyramidal scoring structure: one card = 1 point, two cards = 3, three cards = 6, etc. Whoever has the highest total score wins!

Your score sheet has a 5x5 grid on it, along with numbers from 5-10 outside the rows, columns, and diagonals of this grid. On a turn, someone rolls the two dice, then calls out the sum. Each player either:

• Writes this number in an empty space in their grid, or
• Circles this number in their grid if it had been entered on any previous turn.

Initially, of course, you can only write a number as you have nothing to circle. You're trying to do two things in Knaster: circle lots of numbers, and fill the rows, columns, and diagonals of your grid with "scoring combinations" of numbers, i.e., three- to five-of-a-kind, two pairs, a full house, or a straight. When you place five numbers in a row, column, or diagonal and you have created one of these scoring combinations, then you immediately circle 1-3 numbers in this same line. If all the numbers in a line are circled, you can then circle the number (5-10) outside the grid that's next to this line.

As soon as someone fills in the 25th space in the grid, they let everyone know this, then after one final turn, the game ends. Your score is equal to the sum of the circled numbers outside your grid, along with 1 point for each number circled in your grid. Whoever has the highest score wins!